"It's raining cats and dogs."

There is this old phrase in English. I don‟t know how and from where it came to originate. Neither do I know whether it had really ever rained cats and dogs in the events of recorded history. But at my ancestral village, there was this very old legend, that if it ever continuously rained for more than three days, a bear would fall from the sky.

During my childhood days, I had often seen village people offering honey pots at the local temple during monsoon, so the bears wouldn't fall and stay in their abode of clouds. I had always been very skeptical about the validity of this particular legend and it often seemed ludicrous to me, that such a heavy animal like a bear could fall from the sky.

But if it ever rains relentlessly for quite some days, strange things do fall from the sky. Just like after a tsunami, strange things float ashore from the ocean, like it is throwing off unearthly stuff which even she is afraid to hide in her womb. Something similar I have also experienced in my life, strange and unexplainable. Some may believe and others might not. But I must leave a note, a reminder, a warning to the future.

Run and hide when it rains...

I was a child back then. It was the rainy season and the sky was pouring out everything it had. Our village was almost flooded after a week of heavy downpour. However, that particular day, the rain had taken the fiercest form possible. I remember that it had almost turned dark in the afternoon. The rain had created such a dense mist that you simply couldn't get outdoor without a light.

On that gloomy day, my sister and I were alone at home. We were both children, not more than ten. The electricity was gone. Our home, which was located at the very edge of the village, was isolated from the rest. There wasn't anyone around, but other than that there was an uncanny silence that day. The bugs, frogs, birds and everything else was quiet. Nothing could be heard except the endless murmur of the rain hitting the earth. Like nature was counting the hours for some approaching terror.

I was under my warm blanket, while my sister was wandering around at the porch. I had almost fallen asleep, that is when I heard it, a single heavy bump, like something heavy fell in the garden. Then I heard my sister was calling my name. I got out of the bed and headed outside.

She was standing at the porch, staring at the garden. "What?" I asked her while rubbing my drowsy eyes.

"That person..." She pointed her finger "Just fell from the sky." She said with an awed voice.

I followed her gaze, and to my utter astonishment, there was a person lying on the ground indeed. His limbs were spread out and his face remained downwards, out of our sights, covered by the wet earth.

At first, I couldn't fathom what I was seeing. It felt like a joke to me. As we were alone in the house, I got quite frightened by this sudden intrusion of a stranger. Before I could react or take any cautious action, my little sister brought an umbrella from our household, then hopped towards the lying figure.

"Hello, Mister... are you okay...?" She started poking at the body with her tiny finger, but it lay there still. There was not a single movement or reaction. I was still quite dumbfounded and scared, I thought of asking her to stop doing so. But before a word could escape my mouth, few events happened very quickly, in a few seconds or within several blinks of an eye. It was instantaneous, but it changed my whole life.

At first, the man‟s head which was stuck to the earth spun a hundred and eighty degrees, at the completely opposite direction. This single act was enough to provide enough shock to both of us. My sister instantly jumped back. From that far away I could see the features of the person‟s face. The abnormal complexion he had. Amidst the dense rain, the face seemed black, not the brownish- black colour, but the gloomy black of a storm cloud. His eyes seemed to be glowing with a pale yellow radiance. At first, my brain could not adapt to what my eyes perceived.

The figure rose in a trembling manner. His widened eyes were fixed upon my sister who had turned pale and was shivering very badly. He wrapped his arms tightly around the tiny figure of her. She gave out a shrieking cry. Then he wrapped his legs around her too, like an intricate knot. There was some cracking of bones that gave chills to my spine. Everything was happening so fast that I did not know how to react. My body was frozen and stiff. Before I could even come to any decision, it just vanished into the sky, taking my sister. It did not fly away. There was something strange, unusual in the manner it shot up to the sky. Like he was attached to an invisible rope to the sky and somebody had tugged him up. The last thing I remember was my sister's piercing scream as she kept getting smaller and eventually vanished into that murky sky, among the black and thundering clouds.

After that everything went dark.

I was awakened much later by my parents, who had come back and found me unconscious on the porch. However, there was no trace of my sister. It didn't matter how many times I told them, nobody believed a single word. The search party looked for her for days, in the woods. But everything seemed futile.

Five days later, bits and pieces of her body started falling from the sky and splattered on the ground. Yet a large portion of her was missing, perhaps eaten.

I wish I could end this here, but as the saying goes - if you encounter it once, twice more is yet to come.

Years went by. I had moved to the city. Studying at the university, while somehow making a living out of part- time jobs and staying in a cubicle sized apartment. By that time, the incident had been veiled by my memories. Somehow I had managed myself to believe that it was nothing but my imagination. I could barely remember the details. But the only thing remained was a certain repulsion against the rain.

And then came the cyclone. It hit the coast and started heading towards the mainland. That day I was returning to my apartment from my part-time job. I had shopped for all the necessary provisions, in case of an emergency. The roads were almost isolated. No cab was available, the subway had shut down, public transport was suspended. The gloom was so much that you could barely tell whether it was morning or evening. The rainwater was already overflowing the sewages.

I had taken a shortcut route through a narrow alleyway. There wasn't a single soul in sight. The dense rain made everything so foggy that not much was visible. I paced up and down as I felt an unexplainable chill. Soon I came to notice another person who was walking ahead of me. It was a relief for me. I sped up to catch up with him.

Suddenly the shopping bag slipped out of my hand. With utter annoyance, I kneeled to pick it up, when a sound sent a shivering chill through my body.

I knew the sound.

It was the same sound that had visited me countless times in my nightmares.

It was the sound of 'something heavy' falling.

As I slowly raised my head, I could feel my heart hammering against my ribcage.

In the misty rain, I could only see a lump of something, a few meters ahead of me. As my eyes adjusted to the scene, I could somehow understand that the person I had seen before was lying on the ground. Upon him was sitting something.

A chill went through me as I recognized the same slender figure, the thin arms, an odd anatomy. I almost forgot to breathe.

The figure wrapped its hands around the person. And then both vanished into the sky. Like before, it didn't seem like it flew. But rather someone tugged it up from the sky above. Like a sudden pull, it disappeared into the gloom of the clouds.

Even though the temperature was cold enough to make you shiver to the bones but I was already drenched in sweat. I just sat there numb. I didn't know how much time had passed. That was when it started raining blood.

The thick droplets of red blood fell from the sky. It fell on me. Dying me in red colour. It fell on the waterlogged road and dissolved into the rainwater. It fell and sprayed the walls on both sides.

I didn't know how I reached home. I didn't know what I was doing. The only thing which was working in my mind was that I needed to escape from that damn rain. I knew that I was the target. If I had not dropped my bag, I could have been at that person‟s place. And I also knew that he would be coming for me again.

I packed whatever I deemed necessary, and I took off.

Riding my motorcycle, I drove - giving zero damn about the cyclonic rain. I rode for hours, escaping the rain. For the next few months, I spent most of my time riding aimlessly, finding a way to escape them. I rode to the far- east desert of the country where it never rains. I took shelter at an abandoned cabin and secured the windows and doors with iron bars.

I knew that it wouldn't rain here. I knew I was safe. But it did.

Eventually today, at dawn - the rain started. And I knew that was it. That's why I‟m writing this record. As I pen down my words - I can hear each metal bar on the door is getting torn like pages from a book. If you're reading this, then remember.... Always run when the rain comes.